


How You Say My Name

by jasmine_jules



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmine_jules/pseuds/jasmine_jules
Summary: Yaz isn't quite able to let go.Prompt: I feel like the world is coming to an end
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	How You Say My Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a birthday writing challenge! I can’t believe I actually wrote something, it’s been so long since I have and I forgot how good it feels. This is a scene exploration/rewrite of one of the final scenes in The Timeless Children. Hope you enjoy!

“Any explosives left?” The Doctor asks Ko Sharmus. She has an idea, but…

“One. Emergencies only,” he pulls the bomb from his belt. Holding it like it would go off any second, which, in the condition it’s in, it could.

“Timer?”

“Hand detonation only.” 

And there it is. Every time. Why can’t she just have one easy win, one without the deadly strings attached, 

“Yeah. Course.” A tired smile falls on her lips, attempting to embrace the same old choice, “I’ll take it.” She pulls it from his hands, meeting the dreading look in Ko-Sharmus’ eyes. 

“So, come on. Doc, what’re you thinking?” Graham asks, not quite wanting to accept the plan the Doctor’s slowly been forming. She refuses to look up from the bomb for a second, her racing brain attempting to figure out another way. Any other way. Not one that leaves her friends. Her fam, behind and alone. Again. Her mind can’t help but remember all the other times she’s had to make this choice. Rose. Donna. Amy. Clara. And now them. 

“One option left.” She finally gives in, and looks up. The air feels empty between them, he knows what the Doc plans to do. But he doesn’t want to quite let it be a reality. The Doctor lifts the shrunken cyberman up. She feels the weight of her companions eyes on her, Yaz and Ryan share devastated looks before she continues.

“I have to use the death particle on Gallifrey.” Those words make her plan real, the finality of what she’s choosing to do sinks in, “On my home.” The Doctor’s gaze finally lands on Yaz, her big, beautiful brown eyes wide and scared, “On The Master and his new breed of cybermen.”

“You sure you wanna do that?” Ryan asks, imploring her to give an answer anything but yes, that The Doctor will figure out another way. 

“I’m sure I don’t want to do that,” The Doctor admits, this new regeneration a lot more willing to confess her fears. Her emotions are closer to the surface than they were before, ready to spill over at a moment's notice, “but there’s no alternative. If the Master and the cybermen get off this planet, his home that he burned to the ground. Then what do you think he’s willing to do to a place that he didn’t grow up in? A place that we didn’t share a childhood together? They’ll be unstoppable.” The Doctor allows herself to look at everyone in the room, her family, the last humans from this time, in this corner of the universe that haven’t already been killed, 

“I started this, with Shelley and the Cybrium, now I have to finish it. Alone.” The Doctor finishes, her eyes locking with Yaz’s once again. Her final word brings her back to when she declared in the basement of the mansion in Geneva that, in the end, she’s always alone. At the top of the universe, making the worst kind of decisions. It started when she had to make the choice to burn Gallifrey during the Time War. It’s only fitting that she’s going to die alone, too, making those some of the same choices. Her final word also startles Yaz out of her shock at the Doctor’s plan,

“What?” 

But the Doctor continues as if Yaz hadn’t spoken, “The TARDIS will take you back to Earth. All of you. You can settle in the 21st century.”

“You’re not serious.” Ravio blurts out. She’s not sure how she feels about the Doctor deciding her fate for her. On one hand, they’ll all be safe, the threat of the cybermen gone. But on the other… This time is their home, their dead families are here, and the 21st century, no matter how safe, will bring them back. 

“Deadly.” 

“What about you?” Ryan interjects, “You detonate that thing, you’ll die too. Even with all your power to escape death, no one can escape that. You’ll be gone. Forever.”

“That’s the way it has to be.” She knows that all three of her friends are staring at her, their eyes pleading with her to not do this. But she can’t help but focus on Yaz. Yaz, who’s been all but silent, her inability to speak over the wave of emotions sweeping away any thought clear enough to put into words. 

“And I would do that in a heartbeat for this universe. For you. My fam.” The Doctor finds herself scanning the room again, but somehow, always returning to Yaz. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t look away from the woman she’s become so close with. The woman she’s… The Doctor doesn’t let herself finish that thought, every time she’s had one similar, it’s only ended in pain. She abruptly turns away and makes her way to the TARDIS exit, the longer she stays in here with them, the harder it’ll be to leave. 

“We’re not letting you go.” Yaz races forward, “You’re not doing this!” She pulls the Doctor’s arm back, grabbing her hand, using every ounce of her soul to plead with the Doctor, her new universe, to stop. To not leave her.

“Get off me, Yaz!” The Doctor tries to stop her voice from breaking, but it does so anyways, slipping through the facade she tries so hard to keep up for her friends. She turns to face Yaz, letting herself search every shade of brown that Yaz’s eyes seems to hold. She sees her eyes fill with tears, and she can’t stop her own from doing the same. In the past, it was always them who left her, whether by choice or by the will of the universe, but this time it was the Doctor’s choice. And somehow that made it a thousand times more painful. She strives to communicate that with Yaz, that it’s not easy. It’s not easy to leave behind the person you care about so much, but it’s better than letting you both die. 

“Yaz. Please.” The Doctor continues, she begs Yaz to make this a little bit easier. And for a moment, Yaz lets her, nodding ever so slightly, as if saying, Fine. I’ll let you go. But I’ll hate you for it.

The room is silent, and Yaz fights every muscle in her body to not grab the Doctor, to stop her from leaving any way possible, even if it means confessing to something she’s tried so hard to push past. 

“Yaz.” Ryan starts. Graham jumps, not expecting Ryan to speak, “Come on.” 

Even though she half agreed to the Doctor leaving just a few seconds ago, she can’t get herself to step back. Words force their way past her lips, if the Doctor’s going to sacrifice herself for them, for her, how can she stay silent,

“No. You can’t leave us. Leave me. How you say my name… That tells me more than a thousand words. I can’t ignore that, and neither should you. And if I’m right, then how are you okay with leaving us alone. Without you. You’ve become my life, and there were times I wondered how long I could go on, but now I’m realizing, I don’t know how to go on without you.” The air is heavy, her words filling the space between the two of them. The Doctor’s eyes still try to say more than her words could. The words that normally talk their way out of problems, nowhere to be found. For some reason, she can’t.

“Live great lives.” The Doctor turns as if Yaz hadn’t just poured her heart out. The finality of the words she just spoke press down heavily on her shoulders. She’s said something similar before, to Rose, to someone who she had never quite admitted her feelings for. Letting her go for the sake of the universe. And now, she’s doing it again. 

“No!” Yaz screams. She tries to grab the Doctor again, to pull her in and never let her go, but before she can, Ryan’s arms trap her. She struggles to get free, to stop the Doctor from being able to step through the doors of the TARDIS. 

“I’m sorry,” The Doctor says, before shutting the doors behind her. She falls against the TARDIS, her legs not able to hold her up. She can hear Yaz’s sobs echo through the cracks of the door. She forces her feet to move, away from Yaz and towards the Master. She moves numbly through the halls of her home, and hears the TARDIS’s comforting noise fade into nothingness as it takes her fam back to theirs.

In the TARDIS, Yaz goes limp in Ryan’s arms, hardly registering Ko Sharmus’ movements as he slips through the doors just before it leaves Gallifrey, not quite realizing what it could mean for the Doctor. All she knows is that The Doctor left her. She left her without saying anything but “Live great lives.” Those words feel empty, how is she supposed to live a great life without the Doctor? All the good they did together, all the lives they saved, all their adventures, and it’s over. 

“I know it feels like the world is ending right now, Yaz, but the Doctor gave us the chance to go on. To live our lives and take all we learned and all our memories with us, she’ll never truly be gone, Yaz.” Ryan murmurs gently, not letting Yaz fall.

The TARDIS shakes as it lands, and Yaz pushes herself to support her own weight and walk out the doors, only not to Gallifrey or some strange, new planet,

“We’re home. She got us home.”


End file.
